


can’t give you back to your bad dreams

by Star_less



Category: Iron Man (Comics), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (if you squint a little?), Anxiety Attacks, Bad Dreams, Cross-Posted on deviantArt, Cuddling and Snuggling, Everyone lives, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Infantilism, Irondad, Nightmares, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, Parent Tony Stark, Peter is an Avenger, Peter loves his IronDad, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Sort Of, Tony Stark Cuddles, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony realises he is a good parent, because Fuck the Finger Snap, short one-shot, spideyson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 20:06:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16980972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_less/pseuds/Star_less
Summary: ...you’ll stay safe and sound right here.When a little boy is frightened in the middle of the night, what does he do?Call for his Daddy, of course.~OR: Peter has a bad dream and needs IronDa— erm, Mr. Stark, to help him back to sleep.





	can’t give you back to your bad dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man I really am cranking these out lately huh!!! I mean it’s not like I have work due in by January or anything (she laughs, nervously, pushing a pile of papers off the desk) hahaha... haha... ha...
> 
> Anyway! Some father/son stuff because oof Peter Parker is my tiny bouncing baby boy <3
> 
> There isn’t very much infantilism, but Peter does act a wee bit younger than usual, I think. That’s the way I love to write him so if you don’t like that kind of stuff, go on by. Perhaps you might disagree with the tag being there.. but it’s there, just in case.
> 
> Enjoy <3

“Mr. Stark?”

He can feel something. Or more accurately, he _can’t feel something_. He’s lost the sensation in his legs; they’ve dissolved like sand. He can’t move. He can’t move. Or suddenly he can move, because he’s stumbling as though he’s downed ten shots and they’ve made his brain go haywire but- but he can’t feel anything and it’s like- it’s like he’s disappearing and he feels... he feels woozy? Everything inside him is turning to sand as though he’s some... some human hourglass and then, oh, then something punctures his heart and it’s like his breath is— like his breath is being pulled out of him in one swoop and he knows. Peter isn’t stupid of course he knows something is wrong, his Spidey senses are as alert as they’ve always been, hair on the back of his arms sprung up tall but no- no- he can’t- he— is he going to die? He’s going to die. He’s going to die and, and what about Aunt May? Aunt May and school and Ned and oh, he... oh, he...

Peter’s eyes well with tears, thick unhappy tears as he stumbles and his breath catches so hard and so fast in his throat and turns into a sob so quickly he nearly chokes on it and he stumbles forward comes crashing into Mr. Stark’s embrace. “Don’t feel so good,” he quivers, choking out as much as he can and relishing the warmth of his mentor, relishing the thumpity-thump-thump of Stark’s heart and his own because he knows he won’t feel it for much longer, knows it’s going to go away. Save me, he thinks but can’t say, save me save me save me. Oh Mr. Stark is magic, Peter knows, something that Tony barely believes himself but he is. He is; he can save Peter. He has to.  
Peter is drifting. He’s going. “I don’t wanna go!” He sobs childishly, lurches in even tighter, clings to Stark and curls in like a baby as though Stark could— would— was magic enough to save him and he... he fades and he’s gone. 

Except he isn’t gone because he comes back to himself screaming violently, throwing ‘NO’s out into the darkness as he explodes into a state of wake. The bedsheets around him are slightly sticky and his pyjamas feel damp as though he has been sweating. Instantly a hand comes to touch the buttons on the front of his pyjamas, then to the bedsheets and he clings onto them, listening to his breathing rattle inoutinoutinout all crazy like he’s been running marathons in his sleep. Breathing. Good.   
That means he’s... alive.   
Whole.   
Here.  
Slowly, his vision begins to adjust in the darkness and he knows he’s home (the Tower is home now) and this... this brings some calm, some cool slow calm descending in on his head. He lies there, bathing in the darkness for what feels like an age. His heart beats quick. It won’t... it won’t slow. He has to gulp for breaths, gulp and hiccup and wrench just to get air in and out of his lungs, and— and sometimes they come so quickly he feels like he doesn’t have any breath at all and this makes him think of the dream again and oh, oh perhaps it wasn’t a dream after all and perhaps and and and this sets the cycle off again over and over night after night as it has been for weeks now. 

Aunt May has panic attacks.

She usually panics over him, of course him, him being out late or home late or hurt.   
They didn’t always use to be about him, they used to be about Uncle Ben.   
But now it’s him.   
Usually when Aunt May has a panic attack, Peter coaches her through it, holds her hands and whispers and helps her breathe in and out in and out. Sometimes Peter has a panic attack (he doesn’t like heights or tight spaces; this made summer camp 2012 incredibly fun) and May helps him too, tugs him in close like he’s a little baby and tells him to breathe in out in out one two three 

but she isn’t here and oh god how Peter wishes she was here but he’s too frozen with fear, too anxiety riddled to do anything other than lie there, still, feeling his hands shake. “Mr. Stark,” he croaks into the darkness all hesitant and tearful, eyes glossing over. “Mr. Stark, help me!”

Mr. Stark doesn’t come. Peter tries to listen hard as if he’s going to hear Stark snoring away through three or so walls. He - surprise, surprise - hears nothing and this drives fat babyish tears to his eyes. His heart picks up again. Oh, no, what if it got Mr. Stark this time what if Mr. Stark went away what if Mr. Stark was gone forever what if he would never ever come back what if what if what if—

Peter doesn’t really comprehend it but somewhere along the way he has dissolved into screaming for his mentor, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks. He’s only thrown into silence by the sound of his bedroom door blowing open and letting in thick chunks of golden light from the hallway.

There, in the midpoint of the doorway and the hall, is Tony Stark.

“Peter... Peter! Shhh, shh- what’s the matter?” He cries breathlessly. From what Peter can see from the hallway light, his hair is muffed up and he is in a faded t-shirt. Peter either woke him or he dropped whatever he was doing as soon as he realised. 

Suddenly, Peter feels very childish. He retreats back into the safety of his duvet, lip quivering. ‘Oh it’s nothing, Mr. Stark’ he wants to say because, really, he’s fifteen now - grown up, nearly an Avenger and how pathetic is this - crying over a silly dream - but... but he’s scared, he’s really scared. “I had a bad dream,” he whispers, rubbing one leaking eye with a balled up fist and nearly dissolving all over again. “I went away, I was...”  
He all but wilts this time, whimpering and moaning trying to hold back the heavy lump in his throat. 

Before Peter can even process what is happening, Stark is over at his bedside in just a handful of strides.

“Oh, ehh.. Sshh..” Tony whispers, a little awkwardly because he can’t actually remember what you need to do to comfort a child after a bad dream, his own father largely left him to it even if it meant languishing in his own wet, but even he is surprised at where the gentle tones of his voice come from or how he instinctively begins to pat the child’s back. And then, then it clicks to him - Jarvis, Jarvis did this... well, to be perfectly honest, he did more than this, he—

Barely processing it — as if he’s on autopilot — Tony slides into bed alongside Peter, pulls the trembling boy in close, cradles him as much as he can. “Sssh,” he mumbles, hand clasping and ruffling Peter’s hair. “Ssh, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Peter can’t quite process it either, though there isn’t much to process. He blinks softly, slowly, heavier and heavier but doesn’t quite drift off. One hand comes to cling in a fist to Stark’s t-shirt, Stark’s t-shirt which he’s dribbling tears and snot over (that Stark, amazingly, doesn’t seem to mind.)  
His nose is pressed up against the tee and he inhales... Stark - more specifically, some cologne that has been sprayed so many times into the tee shirt that it remains in the worn out fabric, weaved into every stitch and gently there tickling the back of Peter’s nose. And Mr. Stark is warm, warm all over and when he hugs Peter in like this he... he makes Peter feel warm all over too, warm and small just like May does but, but different - like, like what Peter imagines a Dad hug to be like because he thinks this is the first time he’s ever had one. Especially one from Tony Stark.

“I’ve got you, sprout,” Tony says and his voice is stitched together in tiredness and drink, even as he speaks Peter can smell the whisky on his breath but, but he doesn’t care because it just, it just makes him feel safe because it’s just... it’s Tony Stark all over and Tony Stark is safe. As for the nickname, Peter all but relishes the warmth in his belly when Mr. Stark uses it, a thin smile coming to his lips, so happy he forgets to even reply.   
“I’ve got you.” Tony says again, hands feather light in Peter’s hair. He cradles Peter a little, they rock very slightly back and forth. “What’s the matter, kiddo, tell me what’s going on.”

“Justa bad dream Mr. Stark,” Peter mumbles, his eyelids so heavy he can’t speak which sounds silly but all of this, the nickname the cuddle the rocking the scents they all seem to be pulling him deeper and deeper into sleep. “Wen’ away but.. now s’okay,” he slurs. “Safe now.”

Safe now. Safe. 

Tiredness finally wins its battle with Peter and his body goes heavy, the tight grip on Stark’s t-shirt weakening. Tony looks down at the boy - his boy - as his own eyes pulse with tiredness. His grip remains tight, refusing to let him go, refusing to give him up to bad dreams again. Only when Peter’s breathing has evened out does Tony decide to slide Peter expertly back into bed, just about marvelling at where these semi decent parenting skills have come from and wondering if Jarvis’ ghost has melted into his brain to help him out. “Sleep kiddo,” he murmurs, voice husky, watching in the thin pool of light he has as Peter melts back into the duvets. The young boy finds his teddy bear buried somewhere beneath the covers and huddles up against it looking... peaceful, and Tony smiles and drinks him in fondly, adoringly. But then... but then it seems to be... not enough, as Peter’s face scrunches up and he wriggles around in his bedsheets, battling with them, batting at the fabric as if...  
As if he’s looking for something..?

_Is he looking for...?_

No, can’t be, he can’t be because who would ever seek out Tony Stark in their most vulnerable of moments—

His agitation doesn’t cease. It grows uncomfortable for Tony to watch. “Peter,” he speaks at last, clearing his throat so his voice is as steady as he can make it—perhaps just a bit gravelly—“Peter, kiddo, you’re okay. I’m here. I’m gonna make all the bad guys go away.” He promises because he’s Iron Man and that’s what his job is, he has to protect these kids... especially this one. He puts a hand out on Peter’s shoulder and smiles as Peter seems to submit under his touch, body relaxed in an instant. Slowly, Peter’s eyes open the tiniest fraction. He says something that sounds suspiciously like, ‘stay here,’ and his hand bunches up the sheet beneath him.

Tony stills. Partly because suddenly his plans to head to bed with Pepper are slashed wide open. Partly because... it’s funny, he didn’t realise he meant this much to the kid, not really. “I...” he says, hesitant.

“Stay here,” Peter pleads sounding a tiny bit more tearful now, “Stayherestayherestayhere.”

It makes Tony regret even hesitating. “Alright, alright.” He coos, voice velveteen and sweet. He reaches under Peter, shuffles the boy over in the duvet and... collapses down next to the boy. He lays there for a moment, awkward, heavy and uncomfortable but as soon as he’s there Peter curls up against him, clings on as though he’s a lifeline.   
Slowly, Tony strokes his back.   
Only then, wrapped up tight in Tony’s arms does Peter seem to delve into a deep sleep. He sinks peacefully. 

Tony smiles tiredly; at himself, at Peter, at... this. It just feels... right, somehow - as though he was made to do this. It’s like something has... has flicked a switch in his head and said, ‘hey, you ain’t half bad at this, Stark.’  
His hand tousles Peter’s hair gently, expertly - only stopping as his body too becomes heavy and overcome by sleep.

Peter burrows into Stark, and the night is quiet. He doesn’t have any more bad dreams because Mr. Stark won’t let him go back to the bad dreams.  
Safe. He feels safe.

Safe and sound, right here.

**Author's Note:**

> The question is... what is this fic? Is it
> 
> A) Peter, traumatised after being dusted and brought back to life?  
> B) Peter, post-Homecoming but pre-IW, sort of... prophecying what’s going to happen to him through a weird Spidey sense?  
> or C) ...Tony Stark, alone by himself, floating through space as his oxygen diminishes and his belly goes numb from hunger, hallucinating and re-imagining his last moment with Peter over and over and over in an attempt to keep a shred of sanity within him so he at least expires with some semblance of happiness?
> 
> YOU DECIDE. Seriously, make up your own mind, because I can’t although the sick sick puppy in me is leaning violently toward 3. 
> 
> Yes, that Endgame trailer really rustled my jimmies. I cried in my university coffee shop. 
> 
> Please comment and kudos if you like my stuff, it helps me write more and I really do appreciate every comment I get <33


End file.
